Blue Period

   A few years ago I wrote a post about finding out a fellow-teacher at the London college I work at was a former member of post-punk band Swell Maps. Earlier this year I moved to a different college and was intrigued to learn that one of the other teachers in my staff-room is a member of the Blue Aeroplanes, an indie group I used to listen to in my 20s but who are apparently still gigging and recording.

    Refreshing my memory with YouTube clips, I remembered that they were certainly one of the more poetic bands on the scene, their vocalist Gerard Langley intoning his lyrics in long meandering monologues rather than singing them, rather like a less irascible and more garrulous Mark E Smith. One song on the early album Tolerance is inspired by MacNiece's 'Bagpipe Music'; the video is a single from the same album. 

swell maps etc

 I was pleased to discover the other day that one of my fellow teachers at Hackney Community College is a former member of both Swell Maps and the TV Personalities, two fairly seminal post-punk bands from the late 70s and early 80s. I haven't had the chance to speak to him about it yet (he seems a modest guy who's never advertised his musical connections) but it feels like a definite privilege to work alongside someone who played in groups I used to listen to on John Peel as a wide-eared teenager.
    This video demonstrates how quirky and underrated Swell Maps were and how - very much as The Fall were doing at the same time - they filtered a Can/Neu type motorik-chug  through ramshackle punkish swagger and edge.